http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID15870/images/Don_McLeroy,_Washington_Monthly.jpg
Dr. McLeroy, addressing the Texas school board (Washington Monthly)
The Texas Board of Education has approved (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html) a new school curriculum that will put a stamp on history and economics textbooks that will horrify some and be questioned by others.

After three days of turbulent meetings, the board's far-right faction succeeded Friday in injecting ideals that:
--Question the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government
--Cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state
--Present Republican political philosophies and figures in a more positive light, including Joe McCarthy
--Stress the superiority of American capitalism while eliminating the word "capitalism" from the text
--Refer to the United States form of government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic republic"
--Give Confederate president Jefferson Davis equal footing with Abraham Lincoln
--Cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term "separation between church and state")
--Consistently defeated proposals to include more Latino figures as role models, though they failed to eliminate mention of Thurgood Marshall from the textbooks (he was the first black Supreme Court Justice and instrumental in the 1954 decision, Brown-v-Board of Education)
--Banned the children's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" because they thought the author had also written a book on Marxism

And that's just for starters.
The board voted to replace the word "capitalism" throughout their texts with the "free-enterprise system."
"Let's face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation," said one conservative member, Terri Leo. "You know, 'capitalist pig!'"
The banning of Brown Bear, Brown Bear arose (http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-15870-Populist-Examiner~y2010m1d25-Texas-book-banning-proves-youre-deep-in-the-heart-of-stupid) when one board member discovered that its author happened to also write a treatise called Ethical Marxism.
The problem: The Bill Martin who wrote Ethical Marxism in 2008 is not the same Bill Martin who wrote the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. In fact, it would've been impossible for Bill Martin of Brown Bear fame to have written a treatise on Marxism in 2008 since, a) the Bill Martin of Marxism fame is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago and, the Bill Martin of Brown Bear fame died in 2004.
When the board first agreed upon this in January, you'd have assumed it would've uncovered its mistake and reversed its decision in subsequent meetings. The idea that someone would make such a deduction without anyone doing a simple Google search to realize there are two different authors of the same name speaks volumes about the intellectual curiosity and capacity of individuals who, additionally, are also determining an academic curriculum for millions of public school students across the country.
Adding insult to injury: The Brown Bear book, a 12-page picture book one reads to his or her 4-year-old, was slated to be part of the state curriculum for Texas third graders.

I skipped some here.....

Okay, here is where it gets a littly ugly. lol

If you want to know why the United States is in a race to the bottom, look no further than Texas and people like Dr. McLeroy. Other countries are leaving us in the dust because those residents know that science is taught in schools and religion is best taught in the church/temple/mosque.
American students, already woefully unprepared, cannot compete if they insist that the whole dinosaur thing is a hoax and that evolution is "a theory made up by evil liberal academics."

The late Chairman Mao also launched a campaign against experts. Like the Neanderthals on the Texas school board, Mao was a case study in the dangers of zealous ideologues in charge. So too are Dr. McLeroy and his fellow travelers.

He's a factual cherry picker and a doltish ideologue guilty of every bias he claims exists on the left. He's the last person you want sitting on a school board.

To repeat: The board rammed through their changes without the input of a single historian, sociologist or economist, as they considered themselves more reliable on certain topics. As McLeroy said, "Somebody's gotta stand up to experts."

You don't need experts; the facts are already there. You just need the slightest amount of effort to find them. For example, anyone who thinks they need to rewrite history to "emphasize" that the U-S was founded on Christianity, from the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." (Sorry, Dave. :unsure:)

Not that facts matter to the ideologue. The McElroys of history and their ilk were the same one who burned witches in Salem, persecuted Galileo in Rome and, I've no doubt, martyred Christians in the early Common Era. They've been with us always, and we've survived them. Little men afraid of the future. (wow, he seems bitter, lol)

It's always funny how evangelicals today think the Founding Fathers thought the same as they do, when the fact is many were deists who (and I'm grossly oversimplifying here) believed that a creator made and wound the watch and then set back and let the universe tick. Few were gung-ho about hellfire and brimstone and going to church every Sunday. Indeed, I wonder if Dr. McLeroy ever read the Jefferson Bible. :scared0011: The author of the Declaration of Independence edited the Bible to take out the supernatural elements (e.g. miracles performed by Christ, Virgin Birth, etc.) and retitled it the "Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth."
The text is in the public domain and available here (https://feed.examiner.com/fckeditor2_6_3/editor/dialog/etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefJesu.html).

There's a very simple solution that we need to take --now-- because of the impact this kind of nonsense can have on children all across the country, and by implication on America's standing in the world (both its future economic prosperity, and its current image as a rational, first-world nation): any school system that advocates teaching faith as science is violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment, and as such must lose all federal aid, immediately.

The other disgusting thing about all of this is that publishers don't stand up to the bullies in Texas. If parents in Texas want to raise a bunch of morons, that's their choice, but they shouldn't be able to foist their ignorance on the rest of the children in the country. (:unsure:, lol)

In the meantime, those of us from more reality-based states (:laugh:) need to band together. Texas may be one of the largest states, but (as hard as it may be to remember this) there are more of us overall than there are of them. If, for example, New York, New Jersey and New England all ordered textbooks together, the 42 million people in those states would easily trump the 25 million represented by the lunatic fringe on the Texas Board of Education. Through California's 38 million in for good measure and Texas hasn't got a shot.

As a matter of fact, if ever there were a state that needed to cede from the Union, Texas would be it. (They would probaly love to. :happydancing:lol) Please, finally, give all those creationist-loving, tea bag sycophants their very own Galt's Gulch world of Ozzie and Harriet and let the rest of the country get back to the business of being America.

Our condolences to the city of Austin. (:huh:)

DonnaMaria

03-18-2010, 03:55 PM

wow...................:blink::huh::blink::huh::bli nk::wacko:

DonnaMaria

03-18-2010, 03:56 PM

I'm predicting a 50+ page thread here...........:laugh:

Nice find Denise!

Neezar

03-18-2010, 03:59 PM

I'm predicting a 50+ page thread here...........:laugh:

Nice find Denise!

I am looking for an article that is 'pro' this decision just to balance it out. Haven't found it yet. :laugh:

rearnakedchoke

03-18-2010, 04:00 PM

I like these changes ... but can't believe they didn't get Thurgood Marshall out of the textbooks .... all states should have these changes made ASAP

Neezar

03-18-2010, 04:07 PM

This one at least quotes a few of the board members. lol

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/james_c_jr_mckinley/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: March 12, 2010

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/textbooks/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

How Christian Were the Founders? (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?ref=education) (February 14, 2010)
The Lede Blog: Textbooks a Texas Dentist Could Love (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/textbooks-a-texas-dentist-could-love/?ref=education) (March 12, 2010)
The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.
In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.

“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3713), the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”
Battles over what to put in science and history books have taken place for years in the 20 states where state boards must adopt textbooks, most notably in California and Texas. But rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum.

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3415), to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

The curriculum standards will now be published in a state register, opening them up for 30 days of public comment. A final vote will be taken in May, but given the Republican dominance of the board, it is unlikely that many changes will be made.

The standards, reviewed every decade, serve as a template for textbook publishers, who must come before the board next year with drafts of their books. The board’s makeup will have changed by then because Dr. McLeroy lost in a primary this month to a more moderate Republican, and two others — one Democrat and one conservative Republican — announced they were not seeking re-election.

There are seven members of the conservative bloc on the board, but they are often joined by one of the other three Republicans on crucial votes. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3418), a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/heritage_foundation/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_rifle_association/index.html?inline=nyt-org).”

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/martin_luther_jr_king/index.html?inline=nyt-per) He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported. “Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”
Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.
Mavis B. Knight (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3691), a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”
It was defeated on a party-line vote.

After the vote, Ms. Knight said, “The social conservatives have perverted accurate history to fulfill their own agenda.”
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/milton_friedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/karl_marx/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and John Maynard Keynes (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_maynard_keynes/index.html?inline=nyt-per). They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo (http://www.terrileo.com/). “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”
In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill (http://www.barbaracargill.com/), won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.
“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.

Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.
Cynthia Dunbar (http://www.cynthiadunbar.com/), a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/thomas_jefferson/index.html?inline=nyt-per) from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)
“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

NateR

03-18-2010, 04:17 PM

Sounds like a victory for freedom in this country. Bravo Texas! :cool:

TexasRN

03-18-2010, 04:38 PM

I told ya'll that Texas ROCKS!! :w00t:

~Amy

KENTUCKYREDBONE

03-18-2010, 08:09 PM

I think Texas got it mostly right with this vote! I would like to read more on it from someone other than a crazed bitter hate filled leftist. As for separation of Church and state them words are not in the constitution. I also suspect that the left is taking that sentence that Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter out of context.

Vizion

03-18-2010, 09:19 PM

--Cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state Best part :happydancing:

Buzzard

03-19-2010, 11:02 PM

Please Texas, secede.

rockdawg21

03-19-2010, 11:38 PM

Please Texas, secede.
Please Buzzard, make your list.

Vizion

03-19-2010, 11:43 PM

Please Texas, secede.
I agree with you Buzzard...what makes you think that?

Buzzard

03-20-2010, 12:27 AM

Please Buzzard, make your list.

I'll post the list tomorrow.:wink::laugh:

I agree with you Buzzard...what makes you think that?

I don't have kids, but if I did I wouldn't want them to learn in that environment. Religion should be taught at home or as elective courses. If folks want a religious curriculum, private schooling is available.

While the article did have a slant, I agree with a lot of what was written. The anti-religious bias/slant of the article should have been toned down and/or removed. The point could have been made without the attack tone.

Neezar

03-20-2010, 12:56 AM

I'll post the list tomorrow.:wink::laugh:

I don't have kids, but if I did I wouldn't want them to learn in that environment. Religion should be taught at home or as elective courses. If folks want a religious curriculum, private schooling is available.

While the article did have a slant, I agree with a lot of what was written. The anti-religious bias/slant of the article should have been toned down and/or removed. The point could have been made without the attack tone.

They are not teaching religion. They are teaching religion's role in the history of the US. I am not a nazi either but I don't think they should take it out of the history books.

Black Mamba

03-20-2010, 01:14 AM

Overall, I see the goodness in this curriculum change. However, the only concern I have with this curriculum is how well is going to translate into college? Not every college is going to be this conservative, right wing curriculum. And by translate, I mean once the student graduates and attends college...how will their learnings from school help them or is it going to hinder them?

I would say instead of changing the cirriculum, the textbooks are the ones that need to be revamped. In elementary, middle, and sometimes high school (few exceptions with AP courses), the textbooks were crappy. So much of history was left out and we were told only the fluffy, light, stuff. No wonder kids hate history so much, because it was boring and told through HIS-story. There are so many other view points/figures/events in history that get left out of lower grades textbooks that it isn't even funny.

I'm not even going to touch econ because I hated that subject. :laugh:

flo

03-20-2010, 04:29 AM

I told ya'll that Texas ROCKS!! :w00t:

~Amy

Amen to that!

Please Buzzard, make your list.

:laugh::laugh:

flo

03-20-2010, 04:30 AM

They are not teaching religion. They are teaching religion's role in the history of the US. I am not a nazi either but I don't think they should take it out of the history books.

:applause:

Buzzard

03-20-2010, 05:26 AM

I'll post the list tomorrow.:wink::laugh:

I don't have kids, but if I did I wouldn't want them to learn in that environment. Religion should be taught at home or as elective courses. If folks want a religious curriculum, private schooling is available.

While the article did have a slant, I agree with a lot of what was written. The anti-religious bias/slant of the article should have been toned down and/or removed. The point could have been made without the attack tone.

They are not teaching religion. They are teaching religion's role in the history of the US. I am not a nazi either but I don't think they should take it out of the history books.

You are correct, they aren't teaching religion, though I'd hate to have this idea of McLeroy being taught as fact. My apologies for my misleading statement.

He also identifies himself as a young-earth creationist who believes that the earth was created in six days, as the book of Genesis has it, less than 10,000 years ago.

I didn't read the times article to verify that he actually has these views; if he does I wouldn't want that to be taught as fact. I'm not stating that it would be, rather that I am against that kind of public school teaching.

--Cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state

Why not highlight this?

--Banned the children's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" because they thought the author had also written a book on Marxism

That's just too damned funny and too ignorant.

I'll agree that Christianity has had an impact on our system, but these idea aren't owned solely by Christianity.

Below quote from McLeroy is opinion, not fact.

"There are two basic facts about man," he said. "He was created in the image of God, and he is fallen.

According to the Constitution's 7th Amendment: "In suits at common law. . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact, tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law."

Here, many Christians believe that common law came from Christian foundations and therefore the Constitution derives from it. They use various quotes from Supreme Court Justices proclaiming that Christianity came as part of the laws of England, and therefore from its common law heritage.

But one of our principle Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, elaborated about the history of common law in his letter to Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814:

"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.

Above quote taken from http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html

The United States of America IS founded on Christianity...and the Separation of Church and State makes sense when seen in the light of NO denomination having control and marginalising the others...as happened in the countries your forefathers left...sometimes you dont need to write the obvious down...if everyone is Christian, and no one denomination has control...that doesnt mean the Government wont be Christian...it simply means they wont all be Methodist...or totally Roman Catholic...or whatever.